StephenTall.org

Labour MP Tom Harris, bless him, is clearly feeling a little bit insecure, as the Lib Dems enjoy a successful conference with a spring in their step and the full glare of the media spotlight. Tom’s blog is a good, fun read – but like his Tory equivalent Iain Dale, he has a bit of [...]

With most polls showing the next election could result in a hung parliament, there has been various speculation about what the Lib Dem position would be. I think it’s time for Nick Clegg to make an unambiguous statement that the party would not enter a coalition with either Labour or the Tories. Here are my [...]

The Guardian has the story: The Liberal Democrats are planning to rule out forming a coalition government with either the Conservatives or Labour if Nick Clegg holds the balance of power in a hung parliament after the general election. … senior Lib Dems are making clear that Clegg has no interest in taking cabinet posts and [...]

Two articles by broadsheet columnists on the prospect of a hung parliament bookended this week. In their contrasting ways, both made a convincing pitch for the attractions of neither Labour nor Tories ending up with an overall majority at the next general election. First up is Martin Wolf from the Financial Times, writing today that Britain [...]

Ah, the question the media loves, and Lib Dems hate: just who would the party back if there were a hung parliament? Now we’ve asked this question before in an attempt to get the media to understand the position of Lib Dem members (despite the wilful attempts of BBC2’s The Daily Politics to mislead viewers [...]

I’ve an article published today on The Guardian’s Comment Is Free website looking at how Nick Clegg has responded to the sudden bout of speculation regarding the Lib Dems’ intentions in the event of a ‘hung parliament’. The specific question I was asked to address is: is Nick’s position sustainable? I say yes: see what you think … The election  [ Read More ]

Well, no, it’s probably not. But it must at least qualify for the laziest piece of journalism this decade. I refer to today’s Independent article, ‘Clegg faces party backlash over Tory alliance’, by Nigel Morris and Michael Savage. Oh, go on, then, here’s a link if you must; though I begrudge handing them the traffic. [...]

Over at The Times, Nick Clegg has penned an article setting out, perhaps in the clearest detail yet, exactly how the Lib Dems will respond in the event of a ‘hung Parliament’. He begins by noting the heat-without-light debate that the new year has brought: Much of what we have heard so far is unsurprising: absurd [...]

Today’s Times publishes a study by Professor Colin Rallings and Professor Michael Thrasher of Plymouth University based on actual votes cast in the dozens of by-elections that take place for council seats each month. Here are the headline findings: It shows that although David Cameron’s Conservatives have a 10-point lead over Labour as the year draws [...]

I’ve an article published today at The Guardian’s Comment Is Free blog, entitled, Help save Labour with PR? No thanks – republished below. (For the record, though I’m perfectly happy with the headline, I baulk a little at the sub-ed-supplied tagline: ‘We Lib Dems might be expected to back any call for electoral reform. But we’ll steer clear of this  [ Read More ]